EFF Report Finds 74% Of Censorship News Stories Are About Facebook (onlinecensorship.org) 75
An anonymous reader writes:
OnlineCensorship.org just released a new report "to provide an objective, data-driven voice in the conversation around commercial content moderation." They're collecting media reports about censorship on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr and Google+, and have now analyzed 294 reports of content takedowns -- 74% of which pertained to Facebook. (Followed by Instagram with 16% and Twitter with 7%.) 47% of all the takedowns were nudity-related, while the next two most frequent reasons given were "real name" violations and "inappropriate content".
Noting "a more visible public debate" over content moderation, the report acknowledges that 4.7 billion Facebook posts are made every day. (It also reports the "consistent refrain" from services apologizing for issues -- that "our team processes millions of reports each week...") But the most bizarre incident they've identified was the tech blogger in India who was locked out of his Facebook account in October because he shared a photo of a cat in a business suit. "It might sound stupid but this just happened to me," he told Mashable India, which reports Facebook later apologized and said it had made a mistake.
Their report -- part of the EFF's collaboration with Visualizing Impact -- urges platforms to clarify their guidelines (as well as applicable laws), to explain the mechanisms being used to evaluate content and appeals, and to share those criteria when notifying users of take-downs. For example, in August Facebook inexplicably removed a 16-century sketch by Erasmus of Rotterdam detailing a right hand.
Noting "a more visible public debate" over content moderation, the report acknowledges that 4.7 billion Facebook posts are made every day. (It also reports the "consistent refrain" from services apologizing for issues -- that "our team processes millions of reports each week...") But the most bizarre incident they've identified was the tech blogger in India who was locked out of his Facebook account in October because he shared a photo of a cat in a business suit. "It might sound stupid but this just happened to me," he told Mashable India, which reports Facebook later apologized and said it had made a mistake.
Their report -- part of the EFF's collaboration with Visualizing Impact -- urges platforms to clarify their guidelines (as well as applicable laws), to explain the mechanisms being used to evaluate content and appeals, and to share those criteria when notifying users of take-downs. For example, in August Facebook inexplicably removed a 16-century sketch by Erasmus of Rotterdam detailing a right hand.
Yes it does (Score:2)
'But the most bizarre incident they've identified was the tech blogger in India who was locked out of his Facebook account in October because he shared a photo of a cat in a business suit. "It might sound stupid but this just happened to me," he told Mashable India'
Yup, that sounds pretty stupid all right. Oh, wait, he's probably not referring to the photo he posted... Does he have another one of dogs playing poker?
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Certainly not as stupid as if, say, the guy had run a news aggregator and intended to post a link to information about Erasmus of Rotterdam, but instead just put "ErasmusofRotterdam" inside the HREF, as if browsers would magically know what they meant.
Catz! (Score:2)
The whole POINT of the internet is to share cute cat photos. Clearly, Zuckerberg is doing it wrong!
http://gizmodo.com/why-cats-ru... [gizmodo.com]
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...because he shared a photo of a cat in a business suit.
They neglected to mention that the photo was tagged, "pussy @ work."
Getting your news from Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
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If every news organization publishes fake news, how do you make sure you're getting accurate unbiased news?
[John]
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I'm not sure how helpful this is. I subscribe to and read several news sites to try and get information from different angles. When I find these sites all provide similar information, I see no reason not to believe them. But if all news sites are liberally biased then what?
[John]
Re:Getting your news from Facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
is like getting your news from a toilet wall.
...which tends to say far more about the audience consuming crap as fact.
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This. I don't think what's more scary - the fact that people actually rely on Facebook to get news or that they cannot tell the difference between real ones and crap.
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Worse are the folks who use Facebook for "headline news + summary" and don't even read the articles or follow up to fact check, just forward it. It's worse than back in the 90's when all my relatives would forward these chain emails with "coke will dissolve a steak over night!!!11!!1!!" spam. I'd send them to Snopes but eventually they'd just stop sending me the crap. Can't do that now because Snopes, factcheck.org, and other such sites are Liberal Shills (tm).
[John]
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The ideal is a kind of universal commons where news and information is exchanged in near real-time. At least, that is what I always t
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Of course--in Facebook's own jargon, people communicate by posting things to "the wall".
Who is doing the censoring? (Score:1)
I posted a picture of a pile of laundry several years ago. It featured a pair of pants with a pronounced bulge in the crotch. The next image in the series showed a duck popping up through the fly of the trousers. The first picture, after several years, was removed last week and that account received a 30 day post ban. I opened a new account to complain and posted the picture again, and again it was removed with a citation for nudity. Both accounts reported this to facebook to be an error, and Facebook
Funny guess (Score:2)
Makes me laugh.
Self-brainwashing versus censorship? (Score:5, Insightful)
In social contexts most people don't like to trigger disagreements. People always believe what they want to believe, but the dynamics of Facebook just make it worse. Rather than computerized and automatic self-brainwashing through "personalization" of your search results, the better to keep your eyeballs from wandering away from the ads, Facebook ads the human power of (Facebook-debased) "friendship" to propagate the BS--but who can argue with making the "members" happier in their delusions?
Another way to view it is as a glut of information. In a technical context, none of us can read all of the new research being published in our own field of expertise. You could spend 24 hours a day and still fall behind. But if you flip the coin and prefer to believe the earth is flat, then the google is perfectly happy to stuff your eyeholes and earholes with that "evidence", 24/7 as long as you keep clicking on the ads.
News and truth should not be profit centers. Fake news and lies are much more profitable and will always crush them. The only limit on fake news is human imagination, and the only limit on lies is the gullibility of the suckers.
Welcome to TrumpWorld, eh?
Re:Self-brainwashing versus censorship? (Score:5, Informative)
Fake news? Which self-brainwashing news outlets have you been listening to? The ones that tell you not to listen to the other ones? LOL. Let that sink in for a moment.
You know that actor that got up and lectured Pence? He's a misogynist [twitter.com]. Right there in his own words: calling women "ho's". He has also made very rapey comments about taking advantage of drunk women [twimg.com]. Where have you been getting your news? If your news hasn't been mentioning these very pertinent FACTS, then you might be listening to fake news. And if your fake news has been telling you to listen to them exclusively and not listen to alternatives, then you've really got a problem with self-brainwashing.
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Maybe he did. But he didn't lecture Pence about misogyny or rape, so why do you think that's relevant? Or is this just an ad hominem in the long line of ad hominem attacks we've come to expect from Trump and his ilk? What he said to Pence was valid, despite anything else he may or may not have done in the past. For all anyone knows, he's repented and mended his ways. Half this country won't be holding its breath waiting for Trump to mend his ways.
If little Mikey Pencigrew and his silver hand can't stand th
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Hello? This sort of thing completely invalidates your argument.
Incorrect! It invalidates your credibility, but often does nothing for your argument.
Arguments exist, and they do not necessarily depend on the character of the person involved.
The nuanced and considered mind is the one that can appreciate the difference, and when it is meaningful, and when not.
It's like when you find out the church lady that calls for morality actually commits immoral acts herself. It wipes out anything she ever said.
Wow, better hope she never told anybody to wash their hands before eating, flush the toilet, or not leave a fire unattended.
Because now, your own words, condemn that. Because after all, anything she ever said is no
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But he didn't lecture Pence about misogyny or rape
Sure he did. He told Pence to "protect us" and "uphold our unalienable rights." Referring to women as sex objects is in contrast to both of those things.
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Hey. It was just locker room talk.
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Maybe, but who wants to be associated with someone who engages in locker room talk? It's just poor taste. If it's family you have to deal with it and apologize to people later ("he was hit on the head as a child"). If it's a friend then he stops being a friend and stops getting invited to gatherings. If it's someone running for president then...?
Personally I don't think he did it. I think he was bragging because he's so full of himself and was engaging in "I'm a huuuuge star now!" banter. But it's st
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Where do you get your unbiased news? I'm honestly curious and have been posting the same question in various places as quite a lot of people, including Trump, complain that main stream media and fact checking sites have a liberal bias.
[John]
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Sorry, you're misunderstanding. I read 5 main stream "papers" somewhat regularly (WashPost, NYTimes, DenverPost, BBC World News, LATimes) and pop in to NPR, Politico, and CNN now and then. I occasionally pop into other sites through redirection. I don't listen to talk radio at all or watch TV (or listen to the radio at all actually).
These all appear to be Main Steam Media and are biased (as everything is of course which is why I do follow the different sites listed).
I'm not adverse to checking out other sit
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Mod parent UP to the power of 200. Stop identifying with left, right, D, and R. Skepticism should be your default stance to EVERYTHING from EVERY source. Be the devils advocate then be the other devils advocate and not just coldly be a method actor in all cases. Actually contrast sources with different bias to extract the facts they agree on. Catch details each side omitted so they could lie to you with selective truths in constructed delivery. Where pos
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Well, there isn't any such thing as unbiased news. There's just news that wears its bias on its sleeve. I just today started watching Alex Jones and Infowars. I always thought he was a crank weirdo, but if they're trying to ban him, then WTF? Obviously he is saying something they want to suppress, something harmful to globalism. I've got to find out for myself what the big deal is.
I've just scratched the surface but Elites Panic As Trump Begins To Deliver [youtube.com] was an eye-opener. Big megabanks are tax-exe
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Anyone who says watch that video, or read that link I posted, and think it will change anything is probably the sort of person easily swayed by fake news anyway. No single link or video can prove anything, you need cross references, fact checks, and so on. Those sorts of sites basically rely upon confirmation bias - they say what some people want to hear.
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Unfortunately, you continued. If what the man said was correct about Pence, it was correct, it would be correct regardless of who spoke the words. In the same token, if the information contained in wikileaks regarding Hillary Clinton and the Democrats was correct, it was correct regardless of who provided the data. Whether someone is trying to make you ignore the message
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I say 2+2=4. I say water is wet. I say air is important. I say you can't generally breath soup in my experience. I say hammers can be a useful tool around the house. You know absolutely nothing about me. Which of those is true? Which is false? Record your answers. Now, I say I'm a grand wizard of the klan. Which of those is true? Which of those is false? Now, I say I'm a liar. Which of those is true, which of those is false? Record your answers. If you recorded
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Not sure if I'm supposed to thank you for the request for favorable mods because I'm not sure which post you were referring to. The long thread still bears my Subject: line, but mostly it has diverged widely from the two points I was attempting to make (and I also had a typo of "Facebook ads" for "Facebook adds"). The OP did wind up with a favorable mod (as of now), for what little that is worth on today's Slashdot.
Mostly I have little to contribute to the discussion as it diverged. As usual, most of the no
Censorship on Facebook? (Score:5, Funny)
So, yes. People do get their news from Facebook. (Score:3)
We live in scary times indeed.
Get real (Score:1)
A censor has 0.9 seconds to decide if your LOL-catz photo breaches Facebook's rules of nudity, violence, terrorism or anti-American language. It's not decided by election, it's an employee on a 10 hour shift dictating "yay" or "nay".
AHAHAHAHAH. Their motto, like Nokia, is "connecting people"; as long as those people aren't Facebook employees.
Facebook doesn't owe you anything and it delivers that promise 200%.
In Other News... (Score:4, Funny)
I only read news (Score:4, Insightful)
EFF shame on you (Score:3)
I'm not saying FB does not account for the majority; I'm saying the data presented here provides negligible weight toward that conclusion and my respect for the EFF just dropped a notch. It is irresponsible for a credible and respected organization to public something like this without more to go on.
Facebook is not a democracy... accept it, or leave (Score:1)
2) Facebook does not, and never will, guarantee freedom of speech, expression, communication
- Facebook risks being blocked by "non-democratic" governments
- Facebook risks being sued or blocked by people, companies, and countries.
Unfortunately... Facebook has reached a point where...
Every-one uses Facebook because every-one they know uses it